A Travel joint may be used in a production tubing string for installing a tubing hanger inside a wellhead after installing the production tubing string inside the completion equipment. The travel joint allows the production tubing string to shorten by axially telescoping the assembly. A Travel joint may be deployed from the surface in an extended position. The travel joint may then be released for telescoping or longitudinally collapsing by any suitable means. For instance, mechanical devices such as shear pins, J-Slots, metered hydraulic time releases, etc., may be used to manipulate the travel joint.
When performing subterranean operations, control lines may be coupled to the outside of the production tubing string to provide a path for power and/or data communication to various flow control devices and/or gauges attached to the production tubing string or the completion equipment downhole. In certain implementations, the control lines may be securely clamped to the outside of the production tubing string. The control lines may include electric cables, hydraulic cables, fiber optic cables, or a combination thereof. For instance, electric and/or hydraulic cables may provide power to various flow control devices downhole to control the rate of production flow into the production tubing string. Similarly, electric and/or fiber optic cables may transmit data from one or more sensors downhole relating to reservoir and fluid properties such as, for example, pressure, temperature, density, flow rate, fluid composition, and/or water content.
It is often desirable for one or more control lines to pass along a travel joint. However, the axial movements of the travel joint may prove problematic when directing control lines along the travel joint. Specifically, unlike the travel joint, the control lines are typically not extendable/retractable. This problem may be magnified in instances when multiple control lines need to traverse a travel joint. It may be particularly difficult for multiple control lines to traverse a travel joint due, in part, to the differences in the properties of electric, hydraulic, and fiber optic control lines such as differences in stiffness. It is therefore desirable to develop methods and systems to facilitate installation of one or more control lines that effectively traverse a travel joint.
While embodiments of this disclosure have been depicted and described and are defined by reference to exemplary embodiments of the disclosure, such references do not imply a limitation on the disclosure, and no such limitation is to be inferred. The subject matter disclosed is capable of considerable modification, alteration, and equivalents in form and function, as will occur to those skilled in the pertinent art and having the benefit of this disclosure. The depicted and described embodiments of this disclosure are examples only, and not exhaustive of the scope of the disclosure.